It is common for a person to hold a nail by his hand (specifically fingers) when the person desires to drive the nail on walls or other surfaces using a hammer. While holding and striking the nail, if the hammer misses head of the nail, the hammer often impacts the fingers of the person.
Holding the nail with a holding device or a nail holder instead of by the hand makes visually locating the nail tip easier and reduces the risk of accidental injury during hammering. Many such holders for the nails have been known and used for many years to avoid injury to the person's fingers when driving nails.
One such nail holder is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 7,100,475 to Joseph Rufolo. The U.S. Pat. No. 7,100,475 discloses a nail holder that includes a handle and a head with a cantilever which is bifurcated and sized to receive a nail. The disclosed nail holder also includes a magnetic element mounted at the head.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,370,020 to Fifield, John T. and Fifield, Sandi H. discloses a nail holder which has the shape and appearance of a human hand and when held in the hand it holds the nail in a suitable position to be struck by a hammer. A very similar type of nail holder is disclosed in the U.S. Pat. No. 3,522,827 to Eric W. Muller.
Further, U.S. Pat. No. 4,201,258 assigned to The Stanley Works discloses a holder for nails that includes a pair of operating members with pivot means biasing the jaw portions of the operating members into normally closed position and with the handle portions being movable towards each other to open the jaw portions. The jaw portions have vertically extending inner side faces and inclined outer side faces tapering from a reduced cross section at the top faces thereof to a broad cross section adjacent the bottom faces thereof to hold nails of various diameters.
The above listed prior arts by their dates show that the holding of nails using the nail holders to avoid risk of injury to the fingers is a long standing need. However, typically, people often forget to bring the nail holder with them when they actually need the nail holder at their workplace.
Thus, some solutions are proposed in the past in the light of this issue, such as one disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,788,373 to Aherin D. The U.S. Pat. No. 3,788,373 describes a nail holder associated with the hammer. The nail holder is supported from the neck of an associated hammer in a manner such that a nail may be removably clamped in position thereby in parallel relation with the neck of the hammer head and with the sharpened point of the nail projecting outwardly beyond the head of the hammer and the head of the nail abutted against the sleeve of the hammer head in which the associated hammer handle is secured. In this manner, the initial swinging of the hammer toward the workpiece will cause the supported nail to at least partially penetrate the workpiece. The grip of the nail holder on the nail is of the readily releasable type and after the nail has been initially started a slight lengthwise shifting of the hammer handle is sufficient to disengage the nail holder carried by the hammer head from the started nail. Thereafter, continued driving of the nail may be accomplished by striking the head of the hammer on the head of the nail in the conventional manner.
Similarly, U. S Patent Pub. No. 20110174116 discloses a hammer assembly having means for holding a nail. The hammer assembly includes a hammer and a nail holder. The nail holder is detachably mounted to the hammer to expose its one part or entirety outside an external surface of the hammer. When the nail holder is separated from the hammer, the nail holder can be used for holding a nail which is to be hit by the hammer. In this way, the user does not need to hold the nail by his or her hand to prevent the user's hand from any accidental hit of the hammer. Besides, when the nail holder is not needed, the user can mount it to the hammer.
Even solutions such as presented in the U.S. Pat. No. 3,788,373 and U.S. Patent Pub. No. US20110174116 are present to hold the nail or nail holder together with the hammer. It is desired to have an improved and a more reliable solution.
Further, conventionally available nail holders are constructed of plastic or metal with little ability to hold differently sizes of nails. Often, the conventionally available nail holders are so stiff that the hammer striking it lead to an injury and once the nail is hammered over the surface (such as on a woodwork), it is difficult to remove the holders out of the nail.
In the light of the above-mentioned background art, it is evident that, there is a need for an improved nail holder assembly for a hammer that can be removably stored in a hammer's handle, and such that the nail holder assembly would work with different sizes of nails, and can easily be removed out of the nail once the nail is hammered.